CORRECTIONS
An article in Friday’s issue on the Chancellor search mistakenly referred to President L. Rafael Reif as Rafael L. Reif. The same article also quoted Reif saying “he has to be a good educator” of a new Chancellor — the intent was rather “he or she.”
The deathbed of the Grand Old Party
On my 18th birthday, I registered to vote as a Republican. As a proud Massachusetts native, however, I naturally disagree with the party line on certain issues. Opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is one of them.
CORRECTIONS
The Arts Events calendar in Friday’s issue listed the incorrect date for the Folk Dancing with Live Electric Balkan Music event. It was on Sunday, Nov. 3, not Saturday.
Butt out
In a characteristically paternal fashion, late last month, the New York City Council raised the minimum age to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products. To purchase a pack or even an electronic cigarette, consumers must now be 21 years of age. The justification provided by the City Council rests on the claim that by making the purchase of tobacco nominally more difficult, fewer young people will start smoking in the first place. The data suggests the move might be effective, just like stop-and-frisk. Still, there is a fine line between maintaining public health and trampling on the individual rights of Americans, and the Bloomberg administration has again chosen to jump right across it.
The benefits of multilingual education
Language is a bridge between cultures as much as it is a tool for communication. The complex role of language has led to controversy over whether it is better to provide education in a minority language (a language spoken by the minority of a population) or simply educating students in the dominant language of a given region. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem: 20 percent of the population of the United States speak a language at home other than English, 56 percent of Europeans are bilingual, and it is believed that over half of the entire world’s population is bilingual.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Friday’s issue on the new variations of the biology General Institute Requirement misrepresented the content of 7.016. Despite the description in the course catalog, 7.016 teaches the same amount of biochemistry as the other biology GIRs.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I take strong exception to A. J. Edelman’s recent column on the shutdown and his view that “in the current liberal climate,” Democrats are being hypocritical and indulging in “whining,” while the President “refuses to even sit down and negotiate,” even so being “assigned absolutely no blame.”
CORRECTIONS
In an article from last Friday’s issue about the funding of the student humor magazine Voo Doo, an informal harassment complaint about recaptioned comics was mistakenly referred to as a “Title IX complaint,” and a subheading mistakenly said that the Undergraduate Assocation (UA) investigated whether the magazine had committed Title IX violations. The UA only discussed whether to continue funding the magazine. The article also incorrectly said that the Association of Student Activities (ASA) brought the complaint before the UA’s Finance Board (Finboard), when in fact Finboard, some of whose members are also part of the ASA, acted unilaterally.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Tuesday’s issue on HackMIT misstated Julian Ceipek’s name and did not specify which Olin College team he led. Ceipek was on the same team as Stephanie Northway.
‘Free speech for me but not for thee’
Imagine a scenario in which Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, as well as the presidency. In their haste to preempt the arrival of a newly elected senator they pen a bill that almost none of the legislators read. It is a massive tax cut with all sorts of measures that Democrats believe will hurt the middle class and the economy. The bill passes, but years later, before it is implemented, Democrats, who still believe that this tax cut will be economically harmful, ask for a one year delay in implementation. They pass a measure to keep the government funded with but one caveat—that there be a delay in the implementation for one year. Republicans refuse and the government shuts down, saying that Democrats are “holding the country hostage” and “acting like spoiled children because they didn’t get what they wanted.”
CORRECTIONS
An article in Friday’s issue on the effects of the government shutdown misspelled the name of Mirim Yoo ’16. The article also misidentified an MIT Course 1E senior (Class of 2014) as an alumna.
Zoidberg says
As I type this article on Monday morning, a government shutdown seems inevitable. In a little under 18 hours, barring a congressional Hail Mary, legislative intransigence will mean the shutdown of the National Parks, freeze on pay for troops, and furloughs of governmental employees.
The day after tomorrow, today
It’s time that we at MIT have a serious conversation about climate change. The simple fact — which we all know but seem to avoid thinking about — is that the consequences of climate change are already happening, and will get a lot worse during our own lifetimes.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Tuesday’s issue on the Burton-Conner mural controversy misquoted Akhil Raju ’14. He said, “About half the students I talked to didn’t like [the posters],” not the murals.
Why the Career Fair, like MIT, is unique
The Sept. 20’s issue of The Tech featured a front-page article suggesting that participation fees for organizations to recruit at MIT’s Fall Career Fair contributed to a lack of balanced recruiter representation and that fees were unreasonably high when compared to peer institutions. While participation fees at the Career Fair are higher than peers, the article failed to investigate how the Career Fair differs significantly from our peers and is uniquely modeled to add value in supporting student life at MIT. Furthermore the article did not properly recognize that all campus-wide recruiting initiatives — including those of the GECD-Career Services and at other schools across the country — also see extensive Course 6 recruitment and face similar challenges attracting balanced representation.
Identifying the concerns
In the controversy surrounding murals in Burton-Conner, it seems that the undergraduates and the housemasters are separately debating two very different concerns: one is focusing on the applications of Title IX and the MIT Mind and Hand Book, and the other on the lack of effective communication.
For science’s sake, emphasize the scientific method
Like most members of the MIT community, I am aghast by the large fraction of the U.S. population that does not believe in climate change, the theory of evolution, or the age of the universe.
Burton-Conner housemaster response to front page photo of ‘postering’
I write in my capacity as the Housemaster of Burton-Conner to respond to the campaign of retaliation that began on Sunday night Sept. 22 and was continued by your publication in The Tech on Friday, Sept. 27 of a poster indicating that Burton-Conner was “subject to legalese and scare tactics” because “Students [were] attempting to communicate.” This poster and related ones were posted throughout Burton-Conner and in buildings across campus on or about Sept. 22/23, by a group that identified itself as “Concerned Connerside,” but reportedly involved students from many parts of campus. “Legalese and scare tactics” must refer to my raising a Title IX concern, since that was the only rationale given, and repeatedly, by MIT for removing certain murals and graffiti from the walls of Burton-Conner.
The posters regarding BC murals are troubling
The recent postering campaign, prominent in the building where the Concourse program is located and highlighted in a front-page Tech photograph last week, is deeply troubling. This campaign, which targets those who removed murals and graffiti at Burton-Conner which were inconsistent with the Title IX prohibition against sexually harassing environments, is fueled by a knee-jerk outrage that fails to understand how problematic the murals and graffiti were under Title IX. The effect has been to undermine the free speech the campaign purports to honor by fostering an environment in which open discussion of the grounds for covering over the mural is inhibited.
The ‘how,’ ‘what,’ and ‘why’ of reporting hazing
For MIT students, this is an exciting time of year. Friends who have spent the summer months apart are reunited, living groups and student groups are reinvigorated by the influx of the excited freshmen, and classes have been in session for just a couple weeks. Additional highlights of the start of the school year for many are Fraternity Rush and Sorority Recruitment. While I’ve previously documented my views that Fraternity Rush is unfair to the dormitories and should be moved to IAP, there is no denying that fraternities (and sororities) do a lot of good for the wider community and the individual members.